Outstanding Personal Debt £1.457 trillion

Outstanding personal debt stood at £1.457 trillion at the end of February 2012, according to the recent UK Debt Statistics.

The average amount owed per UK adult (including mortgages) was £29,671 in February. This was around 123% of average earnings.

A survey by the Co-operative Bank has suggested that 70% of people may have some form of debt problem, with 29% not prepared to confront their debt issues.

• The findings also suggest 22% of people have been in debt for more than five years.

• Moreover, 50% of respondents said they had slipped further into debt in the past year.

YOUNG PEOPLE:

20.2% of all economically active 18-24 year olds were unemployed between November and January.

OLDER GENERATIONS AND PENSIONS:

Research by Prudential has found that 10% of people who had planned to retire in 2012 are now making alternative arrangements and are putting off drawing their pension for the time being. (68% of those deferring retirement say they are putting it off because they cannot afford to retire as originally planned.)

FINANCIAL EDUCATION:

A survey of full-time students aged 16-18 by the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) has revealed that many teenagers lack a basic level of knowledge about personal finance.

• CII found that 39% of students have not received any financial teaching at school, and that of those who were taught financial education, many simple money management terms were not explored in lessons.

• As a result, 71% of students surveyed were unclear about what “APR” means. Significant numbers were also unsure about the meanings of terms such as “equity” (73%), “credit” (33%) and “debt” (24%). This is despite the fact that 19% of students polled had a store card and 95% had a debit card.

• Moreover, CII’s survey also found that 51% of students thought that debt is “something everyone goes through at some point”, while only 2% considered it “unusual”.

SAVINGS:

A survey by uSwitch has found that 21% of Brits don’t save anything at all, and just 31% save every single month.

Meanwhile, a separate study by the Co-operative Bank has suggested that 20% of Brits have no savings set aside in case of an emergency.